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“Mmm-hmmm,” I stand to join them and give Liam the death glare. Liam is only too happy to offer his massage services to pretty women, though he does a lot for the rest of the team, also.
“Time to go,” Liam checks his watch and announces.
Liam is the Fun Police, officially. He sets sleep schedules, what I eat, all the workouts, and generally tries to keep distractions down and performance up.
“Apparently, it’s my bedtime,” I tell Emily, and all three of us start to walk toward the stairs.
As Liam heads down first, I whisper over my shoulder at Emily, “Don’t leave me hanging. Does Charlotte’s mama get the new kidney?”
She bites her lip and shakes her head, long brown hair swirling around her, “You’ll have to read the book.”
Ten
Emily
The schedule on race day is jam-packed. Long before the race even begins, at sunup, the mechanics and engineers are all at it in the garage, ensuring every T is crossed, and I dotted. Then, not ten minutes after the race, the breakdown process begins, and most of us fly home.
Dante and Cole have a million pre-race obligations and routines, so I don’t even see them until it’s a few minutes before the national anthem starts. That might be a good thing since I keep replaying last night in my head.
I called Makenna as soon as I got to my hotel and told her about talking to Cole on the rooftop and my absolute mortification of him reading my romance novel aloud.
I wanted to die of embarrassment nearly as much as I wanted to climb on top of him on that outdoor couch.
Lying there all stretched out like a jungle cat bathing in the moonlight, equally wild and untamed thoughts overtook me. Fiction is the closest I’ve ever been able to get to recreating sex with Cole Ballentine.
I’ve only been with a few other guys, but even when I was very clear with them on what I wanted, it wasn’t the same. It was beyond dirty talk—that just came out like a joke with other men—I would end up laughing and couldn’t get into it.
It didn’t turn off my mental switch. I didn’t trust them enough.
Then he had to go and be sweet about the stupid cheese, too. Cole never once made fun of my rambling thoughts or bizarre ideas. He never minded when I went off on tangents. He embraced them, made me feel comfortable. And so, years ago, I opened up to him and showed him the most honest version of myself.
And then he left, of course.
For six years, I’ve imagined what it would be like to talk to him again, be in the same space as him once more. I’ve envisioned everything from clawing his eyes out to jumping his bones.
But when I got the chance? Ninety percent of those thoughts left me, and I was sucked into his vortex.
It’s like he wields a pocket dimension where space and time become irrelevant, and he’s a black hole sucking me into him. He’s been this way his whole life. You couldn’t miss Cole in a crowded high school hallway anymore than you could miss a supernova in the night sky.
Makenna still thinks Cole and I need to have sex to get him out of my system. Even if some part of me wants to believe that, it’s a ridiculous idea.
Six years and thousands of miles haven’t gotten him out of my system. Then again, what I’ve been doing isn’t working, and you know what Einstein said about insanity—it’s doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Stop it.
The German national anthem finishes, and the circuit is packed with seventy-thousand fans. It’s a gorgeous, sunny day, and I’m excited to experience my first race in person.
I’m more excited to see tire data from an actual, full race. Every team gets their choice of three tire compounds today, soft, medium, and hard. It seems simple enough.
I won’t be on the pit wall during the race, my regular station is in the rear of the garage with a few other engineers and our computers, but we’re all in contact via our headsets. Making my way past the mechanics and cars, I head toward my zone when Dante and Cole enter through the back of the garage.
They both look very focused, but everyone else is clapping them on the back or telling them ‘good luck’ as they walk by, so I wait to take my seat.
“Good luck,” I tell Dante.
“No luck needed, bellissima,” he smirks at me. God, he is an endearingly cocky bastard.
Cole is behind him and pauses to smile at me, clearly waiting his turn for me to acknowledge him, too. “Good luck, have fun,” I tell him. As soon as he gets what he wants, he resumes his pace, and the crew get both guys into their cars.
